Behavioral Targeting: B.F. Skinner, are you listening?

In the google alerts this morning comes a story (well, I think it’s a story; it’s hard to tell journalism for PR these days) about a new “behavioral targeting tool” from BlueLithium, whom I’d never heard of until today. As is required by law, the company apparently was set up by a young guy in his bedroom.

The guy founded Click Agents, I read, which makes me wonder if it’s a coincidence that I’m reading about this new tool at ClickZ.com. More research for another day.

Ultimately, you read the article and wonder if behavioral targeting is good or evil. On the one hand it seems related to opt-in in the sense that its goal is to show an audience what they’re actually interested in. The key difference between this approach and opt-in, obviously, is that viewing the content selected for you is mandatory. All the control is in the hands of the network and advertisers and none in the control of the consumer.

And what price does the consumer pay for this? Well, how much is privacy worth? When you’re a voluntary part of the marketplace, maybe not much.
What price will marketing pay? Behavioral targeting, while seemingly a fine tool, seems like an echo-chamber enabler. It steeps us in our fragmented interests, at least at a consumer level. But suppose the ads are political or advocacy ads? How then will fragmentation make national debate more rancorous and unproductive?

Targeting is not about the free flow of information, yet many feel that’s what the internet’s primary strength is. So much of business is taking new things and making a fortune by molding them into old things.

(folks — don’t panic, this post isn’t indicative of what would actually be on the blog. It’s just content to mess with so we can look at themes. — Fred)